Winchester 1886 barrel (Cleaning)

[Mike8623]

Hey guys, I've got this 1886 barrel in 38-56. It looks to have a lot of rifling left in it.........but boy is it dirty.........looks like a lot of lead and crud in there..........What is good product to remove all that lead and clean it up........or what method works good for you folks.......there is a lot of good bore in there if I can just get it clean.

[J Miller]

Mike,

For the lead I'd use a Chore Boy or similar brand copper scrubbing mesh pad tore apart and wrapped around a brass brush. Make sure is copper as there are some that are copper colored steel.

Us the scrubber without solvent as that acts like a lube. The lead will come out real quick.

ChoreBoyresults.JPG

This is the result of using the Chore Boy wrapped brush in my Ruger after a particularly bad batch of undersized, hard cast, bevel based bullets.
Worked really good.

Joe

[Buck Elliott]

Once you get the surface crud out of the bore, try a little carb cleaner (or Casey's gunscrubber) with a VERY TIGHT jag/patch combination. If it is lead fouling, pushing that patch through will literally make the barrel scream...

[RKrodle]

If it's real bad you may have to repeat Joe's and Buck's procedures a few time, if there is copper fouling you can use any of the better copper removers. Sometimes it helps with copper, and lead to let the bore soak for a while to help break the fouling loose. The Choir Boy copper scrubbing pads work great on the lead.

[John in MS]

Some time back, Precision Shooting magazine had a good article done by some prairie dog hunters who spent about a year testing just about every solvent on the market, on heavily-fouled varmint rifles. They had a Hawkeye bore scope to verify their results and track their progress while cleaning. They finally settled on 2 products:

Slip 2000 carbon remover (a surfactant -- basically, like a soap) to remove carbon, as it doesn't dissolve chemically -- rather, it has to be detached from the barrel surface.

Bore Tech Eliminator copper solvent -- which doesn't contain ammonia. When you think about it, you have alternating layers of powder, copper and possibly lead fouling in your bore, so scrubbing several times with alternating products allows you to get down to clean metal.

BEWARE, these products remove all oil from the bore (and any other metal they touch,) so you will need to follow them up with a protectant to prevent rust, such as Break Free CLP or your favorite oil.

Using these, I cleaned a 100 year old Krag barrel that was terribly fouled and pitted, in less than 1 hour, to clean, bright metal as verified by a Hawkeye bore scope. It looked like the Krag had never seen proper solvent in its life -- probably was cleaned with an oily patch, if at all. Rivers of black crud ran out of it. I have done similar projects in the past that took from several hours to several DAYS, depending on how badly they were fouled and what solvents I was using at the time. Since the Krag, I've cleaned a number of other old, neglected barrels, and results have been great -- much less work, no harm to the rifles, and very clean bores in short order.

If you should want a copy of the article (which does a lot to explain the in's and out's of barrel cleaning for best efficiency), you should be able to purchase one by calling the magazine's office at 1-860-645-8776.

Hope this helps!

John

[fordwannabe]

I have a foulout 111 that I use sparingly. A buddy of mine brought me 1892 winny he had just purchased for an unholy amount of money. It was in nice shape outside but he was going to use it as a wall hanger because the bore was sooo bad. After 2 sessions with the foulout I had enough lead in the bottom of the bucket where I poured the liquid out to make a 44-40 bullet, man that thing was nasty but the foulout got it very clean. I know lots of people don't like to use the electrochemical devices but in a bad case I think they are the cats pajamas. Flame on. Tom

[KirkD]

I've cleaned some extremely thick leading out of a .25-20 by putting a pinch of extra fine steel wool in a pull-though, then scrubbing it back and forth down the barrel. Does the job very nicely, and will not harm the bore in the least.

[firefuzz]

Whatever you do use a bore guide in the muzzle of that fine rifle. Although I use some ammonia based solvents on some of my guns I use it sparingly and don't let it soak more than ten minutes. Montana Extreme 50BMG is a natural ammonia collected from horse urine and isn't as likely to damage a barrel as the man-made ammonia in other solvents. But it is STRONG! I don't clean with it in the house as the smell is OVERWHELMING. Also any ammonia solvent should me neutralized by passing a sloppy wet patch of denatured alcohol down the bore before you use anything else or oil it. I also use the alcohol to neutralize the solvent on bronze bushes as the ammonia will eat them alive. I clean the brushes between scrubbing sessions with brake or carb cleaner.

On really bad bores I'll scrub the bore with a stiff brush to break the surface of the fouling and then pass a patch sloppy wet with Kroil down the bore several times and let it set for a couple of hours. Then hit it with the brush again and patch it dry. Kroil is a penetrating oil that will get thru just about anything all the way to the pores of the barrel. DO NOT mix it with solvent, they've ruined alot of good barrels by doing that and not getting the solvent out of the bore before they shot the gun. You might have to repeat this a couple of times.

If it's REALLLLLY bad out comes the 0000 steel wool and JB bore cleaner and about a quart of elbow grease . This has never failed to clean any bore I've ever seen, but is usually not needed. Alternating the Kroil treatment and the JB treatment isn't fast, but it won't hurt the bore.

Good luck with your rifle.

Rob